Rehtori yrittäjyyskasvatuksen toimijana

Rehtoreiden roolista opetuksen ja oppilaitoksen johtajana löytyy tutkimustietoa mutta heidän roolistaan yrittäjyyskasvatuksen toimijana ei juurikaan tiedetä. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää rehtoreiden tämänhetkinen toiminta yrittäjyyskasvatuksen kehittämisen näkökulmasta Työssä tarkasteltiin rehtoreiden toimintaa yrittäjyyskasvatuksessa yrittäjämäisen työilmapiirin luomisen, yrittäjyyskasvatuksen kehittämisen ja arvioinnin, sekä koulun käytäntöjen ja verkostoyhteistyön kannalta. Työssä selvitettiin kuinka taustatekijät vaikuttavat rehtorin toimintaan yrittäjyyskasvattajana sekä millaisia vaikuttavuussuhteita rehtoreiden johtamiskäytännöillä on koulun yrittäjyyskasvatuksen käytäntöihin. Työ tehtiin kvantitatiivisena tutkimuksena, jonka empiirinen osuus toteutettiin verkkokyselylomakkeella Yrittäjyyskasvatuksen mittariston™ avulla. Tutkimuksen aineisto käsittää 97 perus- ja toisen asteen koulun rehtorin vastausta. Tutkimustulosten perusteella rehtoreiden taustaan liittyvillä muuttujilla on vaiku-tusta heidän toimintaansa yrittäjyyskasvattajina. Erityisesti rehtorin liike-elämän kokemus, yrittäjyyskokemus ja yrittäjyyskasvatusaiheisiin koulutuksiin osallis-tuminen vaikuttivat rehtorin yrittäjyyskasvatuksen toimintaa lisäävästi. Lisäksi rehtoreiden kehittämistoimilla on vaikutusta yrittäjyyskasvatuksen käytäntöjen näkymiseen oppilaitoksessa ja verkostoyhteistyöhön oppilaitoksen ulkopuolisten toimijoiden kanssa. Yrittäjyyskasvatuksen kehittämisen näkökulmasta rehtoreiden työelämätietou-teen ja kehittämistyöhön aktivoimiseen tulisikin kiinnittää huomioita, esimerkiksi täydennyskoulutusten avulla. Rehtoreiden aktiivinen toiminta alueellisesti tai paikallisesti yrittäjyyskasvatuksen kehittämisessä johtaa oppilaitoksen käytäntö-jen valikoiman laajentumiseen ja verkostoyhteistyön lisääntymiseen

Developing of Supportive Context for Eco-Industrial Networks in Finland

The aim of the present thesis was to explore possible promotional actions to support the emergence of eco-industrial business networks in Finland. The main objectives were to investigate what kind of factors affect in the development of eco-industrial networks and further make suggestions in what kinds of actions this could be supported. In addition, since the active facilitation was discovered as one potential promoting activity, further investigation about facilitation process in Finnish context was conducted and also main characteristics of nationwide facilitation programme were identified. This thesis contains literature review of network orchestration and eco-industrial networks. The latter consists of green supply chain management and industrial symbiosis, although the main focus of the study leans on the concept of industrial symbiosis. The empirical data of the study was obtained from semi-structured expert interviews. These interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The study identified four main promotional activities for eco-industrial networks: 1) building awareness, 2) incentives, 3) dismantling of legislative barriers and 4) active facilitation. In addition, a framework for facilitation activities in Finnish context was built and main characteristics of nationwide facilitation programme were identified.

Forecasting of wind speeds and directions with artificial neural networks

In this master’s thesis, wind speeds and directions were modeled with the aim of developing suitable models for hourly, daily, weekly and monthly forecasting. Artificial Neural Networks implemented in MATLAB software were used to perform the forecasts. Three main types of artificial neural network were built, namely: Feed forward neural networks, Jordan Elman neural networks and Cascade forward neural networks. Four sub models of each of these neural networks were also built, corresponding to the four forecast horizons, for both wind speeds and directions. A single neural network topology was used for each of the forecast horizons, regardless of the model type. All the models were then trained with real data of wind speeds and directions collected over a period of two years in the municipal region of Puumala in Finland. Only 70% of the data was used for training, validation and testing of the models, while the second last 15% of the data was presented to the trained models for verification. The model outputs were then compared to the last 15% of the original data, by measuring the mean square errors and sum square errors between them. Based on the results, the feed forward networks returned the lowest generalization errors for hourly, weekly and monthly forecasts of wind speeds; Jordan Elman networks returned the lowest errors when used for forecasting of daily wind speeds. Cascade forward networks gave the lowest errors when used for forecasting daily, weekly and monthly wind directions; Jordan Elman networks returned the lowest errors when used for hourly forecasting. The errors were relatively low during training of the models, but shot up upon simulation with new inputs. In addition, a combination of hyperbolic tangent transfer functions for both hidden and output layers returned better results compared to other combinations of transfer functions. In general, wind speeds were more predictable as compared to wind directions, opening up opportunities for further research into building better models for wind direction forecasting.

Aligning Regional Repository Networks

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Kramerius - Fedora based open source system for a digital library

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Yrittäjyyskasvatus yhteistyöverkostoissa

Tutkimus käsittelee Yrittäjyyskasvatuksen Mittariston -projektia, jossa tutkimuskohteena on peruskoulun ensimmäisen asteen luokan- ja aineenopettajien näkemys ja kokemus yrittäjyyskasvatuksen verkostoyhteistyöstä. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää miten hyvin opettajat tuntevat verkostoyhteistyötä, mikä on heidän tietämyksensä yrittäjyyskasvatuksesta ja kuinka tämä näkyy heidän työssään ja opetuksessaan. Tutkimuksen otos on 450 opettajaa. Tulokset analysoitiin SPSS-tilastomenetelmäohjelmalla. Tilastollisina tutkimusmenetelminä käytettiin jakaumien frekvenssianalyysiä, Faktori­analyysin Pääkomponenttianalyysiä ja Kaksisuuntaista varianssianalyysia (Anova). Tutkimuksen johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että opettajien tiedot yhteistyö-verkostojen tarjoamista palveluista ovat hyvin hajanaiset. Ongelma jatkuu helposti niin kauan kunnes opettajien koulutusohjelmaan tuodaan lisää yrittäjyyskasvatus- ja yrittäjyysopintoja. Tämä pitäisi huomioida myös tulevissa opetussuunnitelmissa. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tuoda esille Yrittäjyyskasvatuksen mittariston tulosten kautta yrittäjyyskasvatuksen nykytila, tuoda ratkaisuja ehdotusten kautta opetukseen ja herättää keskustelua yrittäjyyskasvatuksen parantamiseksi.

Cooperative strategy in emerging markets - analysis of interfirm r&d cooperation and performance in Russian manufacturing companies

Emerging markets have come to play a significant role in the world, not only due to their strong economic growth but because they have been able to foster an increasing number of innovative high technology oriented firms. However, as the markets continue to change and develop, there remain many companies in emerging markets that struggle with their competitiveness and innovativeness. To improve competitive capabilities, many scholars have come to favor interfirm cooperation, which is perceived to help companies access new knowledge and complementary resources and, by so doing, enables them to catch up quickly with Western competitors. Regardless of numerous attempts by strategic management scholars, the research field remains very fragmented and lacks understanding on how and when interfirm cooperation contributes to firm performance and competiveness in emerging markets. Furthermore, the reasons why interfirm R&D sometimes succeeds but fails at other times frequently remain unidentified. This thesis combines the extant literature on competitive and cooperative strategy, dynamic capabilities, and R&D cooperation while studying interfirm R&D relationships in and between Russian manufacturing companies. Employing primary survey data, the thesis presents numerous novel findings regarding the effect of R&D cooperation and different types of R&D partner on firms’ exploration and exploitation performance. Utilizing a competitive strategy framework enables these effects to be explained in more detail, and especially why interfirm cooperation, regardless of its potential, has had a modest effect on the general competitiveness of emerging market firms. This thesis contributes especially to the strategic management literature and presents a more holistic perspective on the usefulness of cooperative strategy in emerging markets. It provides a framework through which it is possible to assess the potential impacts of different R&D cooperation partners and to clarify the causal relationships between cooperation, performance, and long term competitiveness.

Strategic management of value networks: how to create value in cross-sector collaboration and partnerships

Cross-sector collaboration and partnerships have become an emerging and desired strategy in addressing huge social and environmental challenges. Despite its popularity, cross-sector collaboration management has proven to be very challenging. Even though cross-sector collaboration and partnership management have been widely studied and discussed in recent years, their effectiveness as well as their ability to create value with respect to the problems they address has remained very challenging. There is little or no evidence of their ability to create value. Regarding all these challenges, this study aims to explore how to manage cross-sector collaborations and partnerships to be able to improve their effectiveness and to create more value for all partners involved in collaboration as well as for customers. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part comprises an overview of relevant literature (including strategic management, value networks and value creation theories), followed by presenting the results of the whole thesis and the contribution made by the study. The second part consists of six research publications, including both quantitative and qualitative studies. The chosen research strategy is triangulation, as the study includes four types of triangulation: (1) theoretical triangulation, (2) methodological triangulation, (3) data triangulation and (4) researcher triangulation. Two publications represent conceptual development, which are based on secondary data research. One publication is a quantitative study, carried out through a survey. The other three publications represent qualitative studies, based on case studies, where data was collected through interviews and workshops, with participation of managers from all three sectors: public, private and the third (nonprofit). The study consolidates the field of “strategic management of value networks,” which is proposed to be applied in the context of cross-sector collaboration and partnerships, with the aim of increasing their effectiveness and the process of value creation. Furthermore, the study proposes a first definition for the strategic management of value networks. The study also proposes and develops two strategy tools that are recommended to be used for the strategic management of value networks in cross-sector collaboration and partnerships. Taking a step forward, the study implements the strategy tools in practice, aiming to show and to demonstrate how new value can be created by using the developed strategy tools for the strategic management of value networks. This study makes four main contributions. (1) First, it brings a theoretical contribution by providing new insights and consolidating the field of strategic management of value networks, also proposing a first definition for the strategic management of value networks. (2) Second, the study makes a methodical contribution by proposing and developing two strategy tools for value networks of cross-sector collaboration: (a) value network mapping, a method that allows us to assess the current and the potential value network and (b) the Value Network Scorecard, a method of performance measurement and performance prediction in cross-sector collaboration. (3) Third, the study has managerial implications, offering new solutions and empirical evidence on how to increase the effectiveness of cross-sector collaboration and also allow managers to understand how new value can be created in cross-sector partnerships and how to get the full potential of collaboration. (4) And fourth, the study also has practical implications, allowing managers to understand how to use in practice the strategy tools developed in this study, providing discussions on the limitations regarding the proposed tools as well as general limitations involved in the study.

Apply of energy storages in electricity distribution networks and reserve capacity applications

The Thesis is dedicated to development of an operative tool to support decision making of battery energy storages implementation in distribution networks. The basics of various battery technologies, their perspectives and challenges are represented in the Thesis. Mathematical equations that describe economic effect from battery energy storage installation are offered. The main factors that influence profitability of battery settings have been explored and mathematically defined. Mathematical model and principal trends of battery storage profitability under an impact of the major factors are determined. The meaning of annual net value was introduced to show the difference between savings and required costs. The model gives a clear vision for dependencies between annual net value and main factors. Proposals for optimal network and battery characteristics are suggested.

Vahdon keskustan sähkönjakeluverkon saneeraussuunnitelma

Vuoden 2013 sähkömarkkinalain uudistuksen myötä verkonhaltijoiden tulee varautua suurhäiriötilanteisiin aiempaa tehokkaammin. Lain toimitusvarmuusvaatimusten täyttäminen vaatii sähköverkkoyhtiöiltä entistä suurempia investointimääriä nopeassa aikataulussa. Caruna Oy investoi vuosittain noin 100 miljoonaa euroa säävarman verkon kehittämiseen ja rakentamiseen. Eltel Networks Oy toimii Carunan pääurakoitsijana useissa saneerausprojekteissa muun muassa Satakunnan ja Lounais-Suomen alueilla. Diplomityö tehtiin Eltel Networks Oy:lle ja tavoitteena oli laatia saneeraussuunnitelma Carunan Vahdon keskustan sähkönjakeluverkkoon sekä kehittää Eltelin suunnitteluprosessia Vahdon case-projektin avulla. Nykyverkon ongelmakohdiksi osoittautuivat käyttöikänsä päähän tulleet tai lähivuosina tulevat verkkokomponentit, verkon alhainen nykykäyttöarvo sekä korkeat keskeytyskustannukset. Suunnitellun verkon nykykäyttöarvo yli kaksinkertaistui nykyverkon arvosta, verkon keski-ikä pieneni seitsemällä vuodella ja keskeytyskustannukset pienenivät yli puolella. Case-projektin aikana suunnitteluprosessissa ilmeni useita kehityskohteita. Esimerkiksi kartta-aineistoja ja ilmakuvia kannattaisi hyödyntää monipuolisemmin suunnittelussa ja ohjemuutosten täytäntöönpanoajankohta tulisi määrittää ohjeen tärkeyden mukaan. Vierekkäisille suunnitteluprojekteille kannattaa hakea jatkossa esimerkiksi yhteiset ELY- ja AVI-luvat erillisten lupahakemusten sijaan, koska se vähentää suunnittelijoiden työmäärää ja nopeuttaa hakuprosessia. Suunnittelijoiden yhteistyötä kannattaa laajentaa niin lupahakemusten, sopimusten laadinnan kuin koko prosessin kattavaksi, koska yhteistyö vähentää virheiden määrää ja nopeuttaa suunnitteluprosessia. Yhteistyöllä suunnittelu voidaan toteuttaa nopeammin laadusta tinkimättä.

The influence of high cable penetration in distribution networks on earth fault currents and the operation of relay protection.

Recent Storms in Nordic countries were a reason of long power outages in huge territories. After these disasters distribution networks' operators faced with a problem how to provide adequate quality of supply in such situation. The decision of utilization cable lines rather than overhead lines were made, which brings new features to distribution networks. The main idea of this work is a complex analysis of medium voltage distribution networks with long cable lines. High value of cable’s specific capacitance and length of lines determine such problems as: high values of earth fault currents, excessive amount of reactive power flow from distribution to transmission network, possibility of a high voltage level at the receiving end of cable feeders. However the core tasks was to estimate functional ability of the earth fault protection and the possibility to utilize simplified formulas for operating setting calculations in this network. In order to provide justify solution or evaluation of mentioned above problems corresponding calculations were made and in order to analyze behavior of relay protection principles PSCAD model of the examined network have been created. Evaluation of the voltage rise in the end of a cable line have educed absence of a dangerous increase in a voltage level, while excessive value of reactive power can be a reason of final penalty according to the Finish regulations. It was proved and calculated that for this networks compensation of earth fault currents should be implemented. In PSCAD models of the electrical grid with isolated neutral, central compensation and hybrid compensation were created. For the network with hybrid compensation methodology which allows to select number and rated power of distributed arc suppression coils have been offered. Based on the obtained results from experiments it was determined that in order to guarantee selective and reliable operation of the relay protection should be utilized hybrid compensation with connection of high-ohmic resistor. Directional and admittance based relay protection were tested under these conditions and advantageous of the novel protection were revealed. However, for electrical grids with extensive cabling necessity of a complex approach to the relay protection were explained and illustrated. Thus, in order to organize reliable earth fault protection is recommended to utilize both intermittent and conventional relay protection with operational settings calculated by the use of simplified formulas.